The success of The Immortals of Meluha, a novel by
first-time author Amish,
took everyone by surprise last year. Few had imagined that a story in which
Shiva is re imagined as a Tibetan stoner, told by an IIM graduate, had the
makings of a bestseller. The book became popular within weeks, and fans have
been eagerly anticipating the sequel. The
Secret of the Nagas is the second part in Amish’s Shiva Trilogy.
The Shiva of The Secret of the Nagas is not the unsure and ambiguous nomad
from the first book, but a happy, confident man. He has left behind his
homeland and settled into the role of being the saviour quite comfortably. Sati
and he are happily married. The weed in the plains is better. The one dark spot
is Shiva’s need to avenge the murder of his friend, Brahaspati, who was killed
by a mysterious Naga assassin in The
Immortals of Meluha. Despite the snake on the cover, the Nagas have
little serpentine about them. They are all humans with physical abnormalities
who have been abandoned by their family because the law demands Nagas be
exiled. The Nagas have their own kingdom and the exact location of their
capital, Panchvati, is a carefully guarded secret. In the course of The Secret of the Nagas, Shiva learns
that appearances can be misleading. The identity of the Naga assassin and
Panchvati are discovered, and among the new additions to Shiva’s entourage are
Kali, Ganesh, Kartik and Parashuram.
There are a number of reasons why The Secret of the Nagas is a
disappointment, particularly to anyone who liked the first book of the trilogy.
The Immortals of Meluha had two
strengths: a reasonably solid plot and unambitious storytelling. The Secret of the Nagas has neither.
Amish wrote using simple sentences. His characters were interesting and spoke
in modern, everyday English, which actually gave them an air of easy
credibility rather than sounding jarring. The Immortals of Meluha sought to tell a story that made you interested
in finding out what happens next. In The
Secret of the Nagas, there’s little suspense and by the end, one feels
little curiosity about the finale.
It seems that while writing The Secret of the Nagas, much of
Amish’s attention was upon language. There are obvious and woefully inept
attempts at literary flair that make the novel a tiresome read. The book
suffers from a rash of exclamation marks and unnecessary italics. Sentences
have been sliced to create weak, dangling fragments (“Parashuram charged.
Followed by his vicious horde. ”).
Instead of simply talking, people bellow, scream, whisper and fall silent. They
are flabbergasted, they pirouette in the middle of a fight, and use words like
“exponentially”, “garagantuan” and “plethora” in their speech. The net result
is text that is laboured, trite and awkward.
Amish’s retelling of myths in The Secret of the Nagas is not
particularly fun or clever. Unlike in The
Immortals of Meluha, getting Amished in The Secret of the Nagas leads to far less interesting versions
of both Kali and Parashuram. Ganesh is perhaps the worst hit because so little
of his story actually makes sense. The uncomfortable relationship between Shiva
and Ganesh in Hindu myths gets beaten to flat simplicity. More subtly hit is the
Bengali community. A substantial part of The
Secret of the Nagas concerns Brangas, who are Amished Bengalis from an
ancient era. The Brangas are clever and rich but are afflicted by a weird
plague for which the natural antidote is peacock blood. So, in order to
survive, Amished Bengalis have to kill the national bird and drink its blood.
Plus, the prime minister of the Branga kingdom is a man festooned with gold
jewellery, whose name is Bappiraj, thus bringing music director Bappi Lahiri
into the Shiva Trilogy.
Review by,
R. Subramaniyan,
Final year,
Mechanical Engineering.
